


l'amour est un oiseau rebelle

by kafkas



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1974)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, M/M, Non-Chronological, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-23 17:49:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6125027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kafkas/pseuds/kafkas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i> Love is not even faintly like a bird. </i><br/><br/>The affair provides Nick with ample time to think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	l'amour est un oiseau rebelle

**Author's Note:**

> Is the author trying desperately to emulate that summery Jack Clayton vibe? It's more likely that you think.  
> The title and the song referenced at the end are both from _Carmen._

 

 

 

‘I’m going to fix everything just the way it was. She’ll see.’

I felt as if I had suddenly been flung atop a very high precipice, and that the world below me was spinning at an alarming rate. I had not considered the possibility that Gatsby might exist beyond this chapter in his life, and that those privileged glances into his past were not as whimsical as I had thought, but the basis for a real, breathing man.

I saw the future projected ahead of me in a way that Gatsby could not. Thousands more parties and the women, more women, arriving in quick succession. The women… It would not be hard to replace Daisy, if he truly put his mind to it.

Not without some smugness, I had in the past remarked upon the security of my position. As long as Daisy was wanted, her cousin would be too.

But now, when faced with Daisy’s hard-hearted indifference, I had to wonder at the truth of Gatsby’s own designs. Had we ever really put a name to our friendship? Had he ever considered me a friend _at all?_

Watching him toss an empty wine bottle into the pool, I felt something akin to grief settle in my chest. In the course of our many conversations, I realized that he had never once asked about my life before West Egg.

 

 

 

Feeling rather spurned, I steered clear of the castle across the lawn. In the course of those iniquitous few weeks Daisy and Gatsby spent together, I attended six of Jordan Baker’s golf tournaments, watching with growing dismay as she repeatedly nudged her ball from hole to hole. I approached her afterwards and said, with what I thought to be very Tom-like consternation, ‘You haven't played an honest game in your life, have you Jordan?’

Jordan grinned, her teeth showing very white between her terracotta red lips. 

‘Promise you won't tell.’

‘Oh, I don't know.’

She looked at me curiously. 

‘You're not really angry with me, are you Nick?’

‘No. Things are strange for me right now. I can't explain it.’

She smiled again. ‘Your Mr Gatsby?’

The determiner made me start, although I suppose at the time Gatsby was mine, to Jordan. He was the only one I ever really talked to.  _Ours_ , I had thought, squirming uncomfortably beneath Jordan’s pale gaze.

Gatsby certainly talked to Jordan too. He must have, otherwise he wouldn't have been inviting her up to his office so often. 

 

 

 

(‘To tea?’ Jordan had said, and then, with hesitancy, ‘Alright. If that’s what you really want.’

Gatsby had been expecting to feel five years’ worth of tension slide off of his shoulders, for the clouds to part and a divine ray of light to split the Sound, but he only felt a sort of weary relief. What terrors must have plagued Gatsby during all of his waking hours? – And for them to be gone so suddenly?

I imagine he might have missed them.)

 

 

 

I can say honestly that I had only been afraid of him twice in the course of our company. The first time had been the day he showed me his car. I remember it had looked sickly in his expansive garage, shining and bulbous like some great pale creature. He had invited me to sit in it, and had lied away to me while pacing the space between its headlights.

I remember an intense feeling of discomfort had pervaded me, along with something entirely less heady, sluggish. A desire to run and yet a desire to stay put at the same time. When Gatsby shucked open the door and climbed into the driver's seat, I did not run. He showed me the medal and I felt as if I was being convinced. Of what I did not know.  _Maybe_ , a voice had whispered in the back of his head.  _Maybe you're being seduced._

 

 

 

The second time was that day he called on me to come to lunch. The desperation in his tone, the rawness of it, had disturbed me. ‘She needs you – we need you,’ he had said, swallowing down perhaps a third, unspoken _I._

I imagined I was being asked to act as an accomplice in something. I told him, ‘Alright. Okay… I suppose Jordan will be there?’

‘‘Course, old sport.’

There was a certain comfort in that. We could be accomplices together. I had gripped the receiver tightly and taken a steadying breath.

‘Jay,’ I said, ‘What have you got planned?’

There was a muffled sound, which I at first took to be him hanging up, but was in fact an unhappy clucking noise that he himself had emitted.

I didn’t press him. I don’t think that I ever did.

 

 

 

I walked in on them once. I had wandered over with half a mind to persuade him to town, and only registered Daisy’s little coupé in the driveway when I had already interrupted. They were on patio overlooking the koi pond, and I remember that Jay’s hands had entirely dwarfed her own, which were pressed against his chest. She had turned away when she saw me.

Looking at the soft red swell of her mouth I remember thinking that she was being selfish. That she could refuse him after his five years of solitude had seemed intolerable to me.

Gatsby was staring at me, bewildered beyond words. Daisy smiled.

‘ _Nicky_.’

Without thinking she ran a hand through Gatsby’s hair, dismissing him as one might a child, and approached me instead.

‘Jay and I were just talking about the holiday he’s got planned.’

‘Is _that_ what you were doing?’

‘Oh yes,’ she seemed very solemn, ‘To Sorrento and then on through to Capri.’

‘And how does Tom feel about this?’

‘Tom who?’ It was an old joke – I couldn’t laugh. Daisy saw this and deflated, suddenly as dismissive of me as she was of my neighbor.

‘Jay,’ she said, waving a hand, ‘Fix Nick a drink, will you?’

With that she disappeared, the long train of her gown whispering behind her on the tiled floor, and Gatsby and I were left alone. Clattering about at the liquor cabinet, he seemed peculiarly agitated, every few moments looking up at me with his eyes bright and flashing. Though he said nothing – evidently he had exhausted his supply of pretty words when it came to me.

‘Capri,’ I said, and his hands had shook as he handed me my highball.

‘Yes,’ he echoed, hollowly, ‘Capri.’

 

 

 

Looking back on it I realize that Gatsby’s dreams were not as grand and all encompassing as I had thought. They were actually very specific. A word, a phrase, a movement. For years he had imagined the faint hairs that ran along Daisy’s neck; the way she would blink upon entering a room, as if astounded by all she saw in it. These traits he built up and up until they were like great golden idols, clad in marble. It was impossible not to fall short of them. 

 

 

 

(A sullen mouth, that was not like Daisy’s mouth but was hers all the same. The puttering of a tin boat about the Sound. Conversational French.

These details, merely footnotes, but there all the same. He did not read into them ever. The font was too small.)

 

 

 

Things got harder, afterwards. I paced the cottage and its grounds like a caged animal, or a child who had stormed off to their room but was secretly demanding attention. He came. We shared a cigarette. I can still remember the heat of his mouth imprinted on the paper; the calm, slow way he moved, as if he were making up for his outburst at the Plaza.

I tried to talk about the Dutch but I couldn’t have cared less about the Dutch. I told him that he should go to Montreal and lay low.

Gatsby laughed at me, then immediately caught himself with an apologetic look.

‘I can’t leave,’ he said, ‘She’ll be coming just as soon as she can get away.’

 _He really is insane_ , I thought. I wanted to take him by the shoulders and slap him; say, _‘Listen here Jay – she’s not coming. She can’t. She doesn’t love you, not like she did five years ago, not ever, not like I do –’_

‘I suppose so,’ I said.

Gatsby’s face broke once again into brilliant, cruel life.

‘Come have breakfast with me,’ he chirped, and started to stride away across the lawn.

In a practiced motion, I followed. It’s something I would come to regret for a long time. I think that, had I stayed put and angry in my little cottage, I might have come out of the whole thing unscathed. Instead I let him tell me all about James Gatz and about the money, and allowed myself the brief stupidity of feeling well and truly favored.

I was not, I realize now. Favored.

I was only _there_.

 

 

 

(He did let me put my hands on him once. It was after a particularly riotous party and the last of the guests were filtering out of his blue gardens. I had been uproariously drunk, and brave in my drunkenness. I don’t think he had the heart to refuse me as I pushed him up against one of the tall marble columns that lined the patio.

I had been muttering stupidly, overwhelmed, ‘Gatsby, Jay – at last – _Jay –_ ’ and he had been silent and pliant beneath my fingers.

It was then that I gave up, realizing that I would be receiving none of the passions I had been imagining. A very hidden part of me would like desperately to believe that he had wanted it, and that he might have felt a longing twinge in his heart when I pulled away. But his eyes showed only confusion and great, great discomfort.

‘I’ll get my coat,’ I said hoarsely, and he started.

‘Nick –’

‘Please.’ I wiped a hand over my still wet mouth, feeling all at once as if I was going to be sick. ‘Please, I’m not myself. I need to go.’

‘I’ll have Herzog fetch your coat.’

‘ _No_ ,’ I snapped, and instantly regretted it. He had stepped away from me, fearing that I might attack. As if I could ever hurt him.

‘Someone can bring the coat round tomorrow,’ he offered weakly. By God! – He was acting as if _he_ had done something wrong. At once I felt all the fire drain out of me.

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘Okay, Jay. Fine.’

My voice sounded broken even to my own ears.)

 

 

 

‘Go say hello to your cousin.’

‘Hello Nick,’ sang the toddler, throwing herself into my arms. At the time she was a gangling thing of around three or four, with her mother’s warm dark eyes and her father’s Roman nose. I wouldn’t say that I liked her immensely – I wouldn’t say that I liked any children immensely – but she was a dare sight better company than anyone else on Long Island at the time. So I smiled.

‘Your mother tells me you’ve been speaking French.’

Pammy nodded brusquely.

‘For daddy’s holiday.’

‘A holiday?’ I called, out to the balcony where Daisy stood. She didn’t spare me a glance, and instead spoke to Pammy.

‘Cousin Nick’s French is impeccable.’

‘I wouldn’t call it that.’

‘Is Cousin Nick coming to France with us?’ Pammy ventured, her fingers playing blithely with the loose stitching on my lapels. I stilled their movement.

‘No. Something very sad happened to me in France and now I don’t want to go back.’

‘What happened?’

‘The war,’ shot Tom, bounding into the room before I could think of a delicate way to put it. Slapping me hard on the back with one sweaty hand, I felt an intense relief at his presence. Tom was a liar, but he was honest with me, and in that moment I desired his grudging camaraderie more than I did any intensity from my neighbor.

‘France?’

‘It’s just a thought,’ he grumbled, with a pointed look at Daisy, ‘Pammy’s got it into her head that it’s settled.’

‘Surely you’ll wait for spring? France is revolting in the winter.’

I was dimly aware of Gatsby’s notions about Capri, about his and Daisy’s escape, although I don’t know why I was abetting them. He had never once tried to help me. The business with Wolfsheim was not _helping_ me _._ All those brisk voyages into the city were not _helping_ me.

Even as I insisted this upon myself, I felt a dull ache in my heart, and longed for those days where he could look at me brightly and know nothing of my insidious intents.

 

 

 

Jaunty music had been drifting up from the garden below, sung by an excellent soprano whose voice was nevertheless unsuited to the style. Gatsby held his jacket over one arm and was standing at the window in his shirtsleeves, one shoulder resting lazily against the window frame. I don’t believe he heard me come in, and yet when I cleared my throat he showed no shock – just turned, slowly, as if awakened from a deep sleep.

‘Oh, hello old sport.’

I snorted lightly at the endearment and crossed over to the drink’s cabinet. A drumbeat was being struck out at a low, rhythmic pace, and I found myself swaying.

‘Do you know her?’ Gatsby asked, his attention once more on the window.

‘No.’

‘She’s from Spain. Never sung in French before.’

That was typical. Gatsby’s parties always had a somewhat virginal air about them, as if everything you were experiencing was new and exciting. Naturally he would have plucked this girl from the Gulf of Gibraltar on one of his exciting adventures, and naturally she would return there the following week. Always things had to be new with Gatsby.

Everything but myself and Daisy, apparently. He had not tired off us – or rather, he had not tired of her. I was purely incidental.

‘I would like to go back to Europe, I think.’

Snapping out of it, I went over to the window and gave him his drink. He smiled, which was always his way of thanking me.

‘Europe?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he replied, and left it there.

I wanted very much to touch him in that moment, although in none of the vague, crass ways I had been imagining. In some respects I suppose I might have been dooming myself even then, as I stood there debating whether or not to reach out and touch the faint skin of his wrist.

‘Daisy will be here soon, I suppose.’

‘I suppose.’

His eyes glinted wetly as the lights came up – a dazzling array of pinks and golds. He seemed distressed and this time, I did reach out, my fingers brushing the suede of his discarded dinner jacket.

‘It’ll be fine, Jay.’

He nodded curtly.

‘Yes. Yes, I should think so.’

Down below, I fancied I could see Daisy and Tom making their way up the garden path, and being confronted with the sight of the Spanish girl in all her somber melancholy. I wondered if Gatsby had recommended the song himself, or if it was merely a part of her repertoire.

Distantly, I thought to myself that the lyrics did not make any sense.

Love is not even faintly like a bird.

 

 

 

_(L’amour est enfant de bohème,_

_Il n’a jamais, jamais connu de loi;_

_Si tu ne m’aimes pas, je t’aime;_

_Si je t’aime, prends garde à toi!)_

 

 

 


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